Stickin together forever!

We met in 2009 during the metal era, when Abishai was playing for his first band. Abishai was touring with some friends of Samantha's from Texas and they made their way to Tyler one weekend. We were introduced at the McMahan residence where touring bands would stay for the night. At the time, we didn't think any thing of it, but little did we know, we would reconnect several years later. Fast forward to 2016, (7 years later) Samantha was traveling with a company called Jurassic Quest and just so happened to be passing through Nashville. Abishai received a very interesting Facebook message one evening. "Are we gonna hang out when I'm in Nashville or what??". Abishai's heart started beating faster than a freight train as he tried to determine how to respond. "We better!" Abishai replied. That's the spark that started it all. We ended up hanging out every night Samantha was in town and they kept in touch when she left. A few months later, Abishai was traveling to Texas for Thanksgiving, EXACTLY WHERE SAMANTHA WAS. What are the odds, ya know? Anyways, she ended up attending the Collingsworth Family Thanksgiving with her brother, who is also named Sam. A few more nights were spent together before Abishai had to make his way back to Nashville. As he anticipated leaving, he thought of how this was going to end. "Do I ask her out?" "We live so far from each other" "Maybe this won't work out." But out of his mouth he uttered the words, "So... Do you wanna do this?". Samantha's response to the absolutely romantic question was "Sure!", and the rest is history.

Abishai wanted to be so sly and ask Samantha on a casual hike. This particular day had dropped at least 10 degrees since the plans were made, Abishai kept apologizing for it and bringing up ways to make this hike tolerable. The day of, they had a regular morning: Breakfast together with Samantha's sister, Sadie, then Abishai went off to school while the girls went shopping. Samantha tried to play it off like a completely normal day and instead of focusing on things to perfect, got ready at the last minute to head to Abishai's for their hike. He had everything prepared for them when she arrived and they were off to narrows of the Harpeth to watch the sunset. As they went up the hill, they noticed a lot more people had their same idea to hike this day. So, Abishai went walking around to find a spot a little higher away from the crowd. He found 2- one where we could lay our picnic and the other to watch the sun fall through the trees. Samantha led the way back to the picnic spot after watching the sunset and turned around to find Abishai face down on the ground. He had "tripped". Samantha ran to his rescue laughing, "Are you for real?". Abishai cried that he couldn't move his arm (based on a previous injury) and she started checking in on the minor movements, "Can you move your fingers?" "Can you move your wrist?" "Can you move your shoulder?". To this he replied, "What are you doing?". She giggled and said "Um, helping you with your arm?!" Abishai responded, "No, what are you doing the rest of your life?" Samantha laugh cried for a few minutes before Abishai put the ring on her finger and asked her to be his wife.

A day after what should be the best day of our lives, we're hopping on a plane to rediscover the history of our heritage. The redness of beards and hair, Irish whiskey, kilts, bagpipes, and more, Ireland, HERE WE COME. We both have a lil Irish in us, if you didn't know. We are gonna spend 5 days driving across the country hoping to find our long lost ancestors. We're heading back to the homeland, y'all. Brb or see you never again. If you'd like to contribute to this special endeavor of ours instead of buying us a gift, it is on our registry under "Cash Funds"- we would gladly accept your generous offer :)